Zongzi are sweet or savory sticky rice dumplings traditionally eaten during the Dragon Boat Festival, or Tuen Ng, celebrated across East and Southeast Asia. The festival’s origins are often linked to the story of Qu Yuan, an exiled poet from China’s Warring States period who drowned himself in the Miluo River upon hearing of his state’s fall. Villagers, in an attempt to save him, paddled out and threw rice dumplings into the river to distract fish from eating his body. This tradition evolved into the modern Dragon Boat Festival, symbolized by the consumption of zongzi.
The ingredients and preparation of zongzi vary regionally. In Hong Kong, influenced by Guangdong’s traditions, zongzi are categorized into sweet and savory types. Theresa Yiu, founder of Dashijie, notes that southern Chinese zongzi often include boiled mung beans and glutinous rice. The savory versions typically feature marinated pork belly, salted egg yolks, and sometimes dried scallops, mushrooms, and oysters. The sweet alkali zongzi, smaller in size, are soaked in alkaline water and filled with red bean paste or lotus seed paste.
Chaozhou, in eastern China, is known for its unique sweet and savory zongzi that exclude mung beans. These zongzi are filled with salted pork, dried shrimp, dried mushrooms, and red bean paste. In Suzhou, there are three main types: savory with fatty pork and Jinhua ham, sweet with red dates and red bean paste, and plain white rice dumplings served with sugar or osmanthus flower dressing.
Shanghai’s distinctive zongzi are famous for their soy sauce-soaked rice and fillings of pork belly, salted egg yolk, and dried scallops. These are wrapped in bamboo leaves from Huangshan mountains. Fujian province is credited with originating meaty zongzi, characterized by flavorful rice stir-fried with soy sauce and shallots, and filled with brined pork belly, dried mushrooms, and chestnuts.
In China’s northern provinces, zongzi are wrapped in reed leaves into cone shapes and generally filled with sweet red bean paste or dates, making them suitable for consumption hot or cold. In the Chinese diaspora, Malaysian bak chang includes fillings like pork belly, chestnuts, salted egg yolk, shiitake mushrooms, and dried shrimp, typically wrapped in bamboo leaves and steamed.
Singaporeans enjoy both typical Chinese zongzi and Peranakan rice dumplings called Nyonya chang, which are colored blue from butterfly pea flowers and filled with stir-fried pork, shiitake mushrooms, and candied winter melon, wrapped in pandan leaves. In Thailand, ba cang dumplings are flavored with soy sauce and filled with pork, salted egg yolk, taro ball, peanuts, and ginkgo nuts, and are enjoyed throughout the year. Thai ka cang, eaten during Songkran and the rainy season, are sweet dumplings soaked in coconut milk and filled with coconut flesh, black beans, taro, and squash.
Vietnamese zongzi, known as banh chung or banh tet in the south, are cylindrical and filled with pork, shrimp, mung beans, and occasionally dried shrimp or mushrooms. The northern variety, banh u nuoc tro, are sweet, wrapped in pandan or banana leaves, and served with a fish sauce-based dipping sauce, often spiced with chili and lime.
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